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A match made in heaven: Friend-to-friend kidney transplant creates ties that bind

One day in church, Clifford Couser got a message from God.

He was used to hearing God's word, but on this particular day he heard a message meant just for him. It happened when the choir director made a plea for fellow congregant Stephen Wiggins, who recently had been diagnosed with polycystic kidney disease (PKD). He needed a kidney transplant right away, and no one in his family was a match. Wiggins and his wife, Natasha, had turned to their church family.

Stephen Wiggins (with stethoscope) jokingly checks up on his buddy Clifford Couser as Drs. Darrin Willingham (left) and Christopher Hughes look on.

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"We need to pray. Stephen needs a kidney. He's O positive," Couser recalls the choir director saying. "As soon as I heard that, I heard, 'You are a perfect match.' I turned white. I don't hear God speak to me like that very often. I just sat there and didn't say anything."

"Before Couser could tell his wife that he believed he was meant to be the donor, she had already told Wiggins she would give him one of her kidneys if she could. Stephanie Couser went through the evaluation, but an anomaly in one kidney made her a poor choice. Clifford Couser was the next person to undergo the lengthy process."

"He passed through every single step with no problem, all the way down to the anatomy of his kidneys being perfect to allow us to use one of them for donation," says Mayo Clinic transplant surgeon Dr. Christopher Hughes.

Stephen Wiggins (left) and Clifford Couser were friends before the transplant and say the experience brought them even closer.

Hughes became friends with Wiggins and his donor, Clifford Couser, through their church about the time Wiggins' health began to deteriorate. Wiggins was diagnosed with PKD at age 27 after a physical exam revealed dangerously high blood pressure, a common sign of PKD. For years, Wiggins religiously controlled his hypertension with diet and medications. About 2 1/2 years ago, his abdomen swelled as cysts on his kidneys grew and multiplied.

The fist-sized human kidneys normally weigh 10 to 12 ounces each. Because of the disease, Wiggins' kidneys had ballooned to an alarming 10 and 12 pounds, respectively. "They were so big, he couldn't eat," says Hughes. "They took up his whole abdomen. His intestine was so compressed by these kidneys that it pushed up on his diaphragm and made it hard for him to breathe."

Wiggins was constantly tired, because his kidneys stopped making enough of the hormone necessary to form red blood cells. Wiggins' doctor began to talk about a kidney transplant. Last fall, he was hospitalized with double pneumonia. "My lungs were just crushing and on fire, my kidneys were on fire," Wiggins says. "I told my wife, 'I think I'm dying.' " But she refused to believe that. She prayed with him, and friends from their church and others did the same. He recovered but believes the antibiotics and opiates were too much for his kidneys to handle. Their function decreased markedly.

Kidney transplantation became his only hope. Given his condition, going on dialysis until a cadaveric organ became available was not the best option. The search for a living donor began.

And then came that fateful day in church.

Hughes and Dr. Darrin Willingham, also a member of Wiggins' church and a transplant surgeon, interrupted their vacations to lead the surgical team. "Out of pure compassion for Cliff and me, they both volunteered," Wiggins says. "I told Chris [Hughes] that if this is too close to home for you, I want you to opt out."

It was the first time Hughes had operated on a friend. "Our church is very close," he says. "Everybody knows Cliff because he's one of the leaders of the choir, and everybody knows Steve and the plight he was going through. And they know me as well. So, to operate on somebody I know and to have a lot of other people know that I'm operating on him was some added pressure I guess, but truthfully, in the operating room all that went away."

Usually the recipient's own kidneys are left in the body, but Wiggins' were so large that was not an option. Once his kidneys were removed, a second transplant team, lead by Mayo surgeon Dr. Winston Hewitt, laparoscopically removed Couser's left kidney. "With smaller incisions and shorter recovery times, the vast majority of donors are out of the hospital in one or two days after the donation process," Hewitt says. "This has actually increased the donation rates since convalescence time is far shorter than it used to be."

In early April, two weeks after their surgeries, both men took time out from errands and appointments to share thoughts on their shared experience. "God was saying this is an opportunity for you to do My will," Couser says. "He let me decide if I would be obedient or not. It didn't really cost me anything but some discomfort."

For Wiggins, it was not only a life-saving experience, but also a lesson in love and compassion.

"All I can do is thank you from the bottom of my heart," Wiggins says, "and pray that God will shower Heaven on you, because He can give you so much more than I can ever give you."